Colleges and universities have spent decades demeaning America as a country. Now facing their biggest financial challenge ever from voluntary shutdowns over the Coronavirus, they are looking to bypass American students in favor of illegal immigrants in giving financial aid. Legal law is preventing this action as of now.

For weeks, colleges and leaders across higher ed pressed the U.S. Department of Education to clarify the limits on the $6 billion or so in federal aid Congress set aside in the recent stimulus package for students whose lives were fractured by the coronavirus.

On Tuesday, they got one answer to their questions.

The Ed Department effectively prohibited international and unauthorized students — including participants in Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program protecting those who immigrated to the U.S. illegally as children — from getting the federal rescue funding. Colleges are supposed to pass down half of the dollars they receive to students in the form of emergency grants.

The department, in its guidance to colleges, said only students who were eligible for federal financial aid could get the grants funded by the $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act that President Donald Trump signed last month.

More than 450,000 unauthorized students are enrolled in U.S. institutions, or about 2% of the overall college population, according to a recent report by the Presidents’ Alliance and New American Economy, a think tank. About 216,000 of those students are either eligible for or receive DACA, which means they can’t be deported and are authorized to work in the U.S.